Detectives investigating the gruesome murder of Bishwajit Das yesterday began quizzing six of the 10 arrestees in the murder case, now on remand, to ascertain if the murder was pre-planned and whether they were instigated by others.

China's development model based on rapid urbanisation powered by strong industrial support has made the country the world's second largest economy. While its economic forecasts show further prosperity, lifestyle in China is undergoing a fast transformation.

Farmers in many parts of the country are producing vegetables without using chemical pesticides but their toxicity-free produce is getting mixed with toxic vegetables in the absence of proper marketing facilities.

Nancy Lanza loved guns, and often took her sons to one of the shooting ranges here in the suburbs northeast of New York City, where there is an active community of gun enthusiasts, her friends said. At a local bar, she sometimes talked about her gun collection.

Islamists backing a new constitution for Egypt claimed victory yesterday in an initial phase of a referendum, but the opposition alleged polling violations and said it would await the final results in a week's time.

Editorial

Only when we can say thank you from the core of our heart can we savor the delight for which we say so. And the GOB did just that on 15 December this year, once again. It was the fourth such ceremony, awarding our foreign friends. It was an acknowledgement of their help and support to our war of liberation. And in honouring them we have honoured ourselves. We congratulate the government, and especially Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for this initiative.

It is puzzling to note that garments industry, a prime foreign exchange earner, has been left to its own devices to grow listlessly without sustainability built into the sector. As long as it minted money, the government and the industry owners were lulled into a complacent mode, thinking their position in the world market is invincible. But we have been rudely awakened by the Tazreen factory fire disaster. It has literally opened a Pandora's box as safety standards and environmental issues came under a closer scrutiny world wide.

Sports

Arambagh KS opened their account in their third match of the Grameenphone Bangladesh Premier League as they handed a 1-0 defeat to visitors Feni Soccer Club at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

Two crucial fixtures of the Grameenphone Bangladesh Premier League take place today at the Bangabandhu National Stadium with Sheikh Russel KC taking on last season's runners-up Muktijoddha Sangsad in the first match and Mohammedan SC playing against Team BJMC in the latter.

A desperate India's push for a series-levelling win was met with dogged resistance from England who rode on Jonathan Trott's gritty half-century to overcome a nervous phase as the fourth and final Test seemed headed for a draw on Sunday.

Shaheed Mushtaque XI beat Shaheed Jewel XI by four wickets to win the Victory Day exhibition match, which took place at the Dhanmondi Cricket Stadium, yesterday. The traditional cricket match, which first took place in 1972, is organised every year in memory of the Liberation War martyrs Shaheed Abdul Halim Chowdhury Jewel and Shaheed Mushtaque Ahmed.

Bangladesh golfer Siddikur Rahman finished his Iskandar Johor Open campaign in Malaysia strongly as he surged to joint 21st in the last round yesterday after starting the day on 59th. The rain-affected event was curtailed to a 54-stroke meet, and Siddikur put in his best performance in the third and final round, carding a five-under-par 67 for a cumulative score of six-under-par 210.

All-rounder Ryan McLaren has been called in as a replacement for Wayne Parnell in South Africa's Twenty20 squad that will play New Zealand in a three-match series starting December 21. Parnell has suffered a wrist injury that has ruled him out for two weeks.

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) decided to install barbed wire fences around the Mohammedan gallery to the Abahani gallery (whole western gallery) at the end of first phase of the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League following crowd trouble during Friday's match between Abahani and Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club.

Three players shared the lead with maximum 5 points after the fifth round of the Shaheed Muktijuddha Mufti Mohammad Kased International Rating Chess Tournament, in the city yesterday. They leaders are: GM Ziaur Rahman, GM Abdullah Al Rakib, FM Sheikh Nasir Ahmed Club. IM Minhazuddin Ahmed Sagar and Sohel Chowdhury. Monir Hossain was in second position with 4.5 points.

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho sought Saturday to deal with speculation of a rift in the Bernabeu dressing room by revealing he had had a heart to heart chat with the squad ahead of Sunday's meeting with Espanyol.

Champions League competitors Schalke 04 have sacked coach Huub Stevens after a poor domestic run, culminating in Saturday's 3-1 defeat to Freiburg which saw them drop to seventh in the Bundesliga, the club said on Sunday.

China will maintain steady economic polices in 2013, leaving room for manoeuvre in the face of global risks while deepening reforms to support long-term growth, the official Xinhua news agency said after an annual policy-setting conference on Sunday.

US House Speaker John Boehner's office would not confirm or deny a late Saturday report which said the top Republican has proposed raising taxes on wealthy Americans as part of a deficit reduction deal.

India is a world power, so allies in the West would like to believe, but recent developments in its own backyard reveal the limits of the country's influence and still weak diplomatic force, said analysts.

Small investors largely shunned an IPO by the tower arm of Indian telecom firm Bharti, aimed at raising $845 million, but the issue was fully subscribed thanks to institutional buyers, data showed Saturday.

Mark Gongloff is not a fan of the idea that corporations are people. Except, that is, when the corporation in question is HSBC: he's extremely angry at the fact that the UK bank won't face criminal prosecution as a result of its money-laundering shenanigans.

Metropolitan

With a call to expedite the war crimes trial, different political and socio-cultural organisations and Bangladesh missions abroad observed the nation's 41st anniversary of victory yesterday amid much enthusiasm and gaiety.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia yesterday paid glowing tributes to the martyrs of the War of Liberation by placing wreaths at the National Memorial at Savar marking the country's 42nd great Victory Day.

December 17 is a red letter day for Khulna dwellers as on this day in 1971 the Pakistani occupation forces surrendered to the allied forces of Bangladeshi freedom fighters and Indian forces in Khulna, a day after the rest of the country.

A major junction of the capital's road network, Farmgate, has now turned into a coaching hub, which draws tens of thousands of students from different areas every day, choking a major portion of the capital with traffic, says a transport expert.

Leaders of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal and Gonotantrik Baam Morcha, an alliance of seven left-leaning parties, yesterday called upon all pro-liberation forces to repudiate the war criminals through enforcing a peaceful hartal tomorrow.

Declining fish stocks, unavailability of government support, rising prices of fishing materials, lack of capital and competition from outsiders are causing a gradual decline in the number of fishermen and vessels in Patenga.

National

Fifteen mass graves of Liberation War martyrs in Sadar, Aditmari, Kaliganj and Hatibandha upazilas under the district, including the largest one near Lalmonirhat Railway Station of the district town, have remained neglected for long.

The man, who earlier started earth-filling in the restricted area of four-vent Nabaganga regulator near Dhaka road bus stand in Magura town, put up a signboard there on Thursday, apparently to 'establish' his claim on the land belonging to the Water Development Board (WDB).

Failing to bear it any more, a man in Sadar upazila of the district lodged a complaint against his drug addict son. Later a mobile court sentenced Jahangir Alam, 25, son of Moksudur Rahman of Jahanpur village to six months imprisonment on Saturday. Police said Jahangir used to torture his parents for money to buy drugs and vandalise furniture of the house. Jahangir was arrested with drug in his possession on Saturday after his father filed a written complaint with the police on Friday.

An elderly woman was killed and 10 others were injured in a clash between two rival groups over a piece of disputed land at Nobinagar village in Patgram upazila on Friday. Police arrested Dulal Islam, 48, Sohidur Rahman, 40, Wahidar Rahman, 44, and Karimon Begum, 38, of the village in this connection. The deceased was identified as Fatema Bewa, 67, wife of late Afsar Ali of the village. Police said, an altercation took place between the supporters of Bewa's son Abdul Jobbar and his uncle Abed Ali over the land at the village. At a stage, Bewa was beaten to death by the rival group when she tried to save her son.

At least 30 dwelling houses were gutted and five received burn injures on Saturday night in a devastating fire in Gabtola Goborchaka area in the city. Officer in-charge in Sonadanga model police station Quamruzzaman, quoting locals, said that the fire originated from a stove at a small restaurant at around 8.00pm and soon engulfed the adjacent houses. Four fire fighting units from Boyra with the help of local people extinguished the blaze after around one hour of frantic efforts.

Letters

The photo of murdering an innocent man by the activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, published in The Daily Star, is so much shocking and disturbing that I fail to describe my feelings to condemn such a murder. And I wonder how the 13-year-old boy could bear the pain of seeing the gruesome killing of a young man. The lives of common people have become unsafe, and in such cases the law enforcers just witness the incidents without intervening. It is pointless to ask the incumbent government to take any sort of action because they will obviously turn a blind eye to such activities done by their party cadres and will do nothing. Allah will never help the people of a country who do not help themselves to change their own fate.

“Ma, I am going to die. You will find me in a toilet”…we can never imagine the pain and trauma Polash, one of the victims of the Tazreen fire, went through while he told this to his mother over phone, in the last minutes of his life. The criminals responsible for these deaths as well as the flyover tragedy in Chittagong, which also claimed several lives, should not go unpunished. Three girders of the 1.4 km long flyover collapsed over the local people and now the authorities are getting ready to give colossal amounts of compensations. Why? Couldn't they use that money to complete that already delayed flyover project? If they did so, so many lives could be saved. These current tragedies also show that the authorities concerned are not at all worried about anything, be it the government agencies or the owners of the firms. As a teenager, I firmly believe that observing a national mourning day or compensating these unfortunate people will not help, not at all. But, restricting our lax laws and supervising that the laws are implemented will surely help. I appreciate the government's move of countrywide inspection of ill-equipped factories by fire service teams but I also urge that it continues and not stop after a certain period. There is no point in playing the blame game.

From the very beginning, former communications minister Syed Abul Hossain's name was coming up again and again in connection with corruption in the Padma bridge project. But the government was brushing it aside. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina even called him a 'patriot'. Finally when the World Bank refused to sign any deal if Abul Hossain is in his position, the government removed him from his post.

A news item with interesting information, published in this daily recently, has drawn my attention. Stephen Hawking, the former Lucasian professor of mathematics holding Isaac Newton's chair at Cambridge University, has won the Special Fundamental Physics Prize. The report suggests that Professor Hawking will have to ponder how he would spend $3 million that has landed in his bank account after winning the most lucrative science prize ever established.

Blocking of YouTube has caused huge damage to the students who need to hear educational lectures on the site. Our policymakers are talking about digital Bangladesh. Is this a step for digital Bangladesh? A section of the government might have thought that the blocking of YouTube would go in its favour because no one would get any scope to post and re-post bitter TV talk shows on YouTube and so anti-government statements will not be disseminated. But we cannot suffer for a cheap movie made in the USA. In fact, many non-Muslims already rejected that movie. Unfortunately, our IT community failed to pressurise the government to open YouTube.

Congratulations, Shohag Gaji. We are really proud of you. Before the match, we were afraid of Chris Gayle. You have provided the courage to all the cricketers and cricket fans to overcome that fear. Now you have become the symbol of fear to the Caribbeans. You sent Gayle to the pavilion before he could start playing. We are really hopeful about you. Now please try to perform consistently and take our country to the peak of honour.

The 9/29 attack on the Buddhist monasteries, temples and houses in Ramu is a disgrace to the non-communal history of Bangladesh. Though it has been more than two months into the Ramu violence, the inquiry committee has not been able to provide any satisfactory answer. This Ramu event can be analyzed from different perspectives. For instance, it can be scrutinized if any individuals or political leaders were involved in the attack in order to gain some political and personal interests.

That night I got down from a bus at Azimpur. The weather was cold. I had to wait there for a few minutes to get on a tempo to reach my home. Suddenly I saw a middle-aged woman sleeping with her two children on the footpath. The children were naked. One of the children was sleeping almost on the road. I wish our government would take effective steps for reducing poverty. We always hear from the government about eliminating poverty but in reality we do not see any change. The government should find effective ways to rehabilitate the poor.

International

The people of Newtown, soon to be joined by President Barack Obama, poured into churches yesterday to pray for the 20 children and seven adults slaughtered in one of the worst ever US shooting massacres.

Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) surged back to power in an election yesterday just three years after a devastating defeat, giving ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe.

Immediately after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lashed out at the critics of FDI in retail, saying their opposition was “constrained by outdated ideologies,” Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee hit back, claiming that she belonged to the grass roots and was “outdated.”

Indian infrastructure firm GMR will seek a compensation of over $800 million from Maldives for the termination of its airport deal here but Male is insisting on a “forensic audit” as it feels the actual amount would be less than half.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik yesterday blamed Indian security agencies for their “failure” to prevent the Mumbai terror attack and alleged that Indian non-state actors were involved in the massacre.

Six people were killed yesterday as police and troops battled militants armed with automatic weapons, grenades and mortars in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar, a day after a deadly Taliban raid on the city's airport.

Fijian authorities scrambled to evacuate tourists and residents in low-lying areas yesterday as a monster cyclone threatened the Pacific nation with "catastrophic damage" after causing devastation in Samoa.

Arts & Entertainment

Sammilito Sangskritik JoteMarking 41st Victory Day, different organisations and institutions chalked out elaborate programmes at various parts of the capital and across the country. Sammilito Sangskritik Jote (SSJ) brought out a colourful rally from Central Shaheed Minar premises. The rally led by Jote leaders -- Nasiruddin Yousuff, Ramendu Majumdar, Golam Kuddus, Hasan Arif and others --circled different streets of Dhaka University campus and adjacent area. Prior to bringing out the rally, the leaders delivered spirited speeches to bring the war criminals to book. "The nation sincerely awaits the declaration of verdict of at least one war criminal in this month of victory," said Ramendu Majumdar.

The University of Dhaka, the epicentre of youthful celebrations in Dhaka, came out in its colourful best on the occasion of the 41st Victory Day of Bangladesh. From the early hours of Sunday, thousands gathered at various points of the campus to observe the activities. However, the celebrations by various cultural and student organisations began the day before, at the Teachers-Students Centre. Socio-cultural organisations at the TSC, including Dhaka University Film Society, Dhaka University Tourist Society, Dhaka University Photographic Society, Dhaka University Information Technology Society, Slogan Ekattor, Probhat Feri, along with Shangskritik Union, carried out the programmes.

The rendition of patriotic songs by various cultural organisations moved the huge audience, on the fourth day of a weeklong celebration marking Mymensingh Free Day and Victory Day at Chhoto Bazar open stage in the town on December 13.

Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy observed Martyred Intellectuals' Day with the staging of a dance drama at its National Theatre Hall on December 14. The eventful evening featured staging of Warda Rihab's directorial work, “Jotodin Robey Padma Meghna”, to a houseful audience.

OP-ED

We fought and defeated our enemy, the Pakistani occupiers, 41 years ago. The reason we fought for independence from Pakistan was that their ruling class had deprived us of all our rights as people -- socio-economic, democratic, individual and human.

Chopper in hand, the blood in the shirt bears the sign of that weapon; bestial anger written all over their face and the picture of a young man crying for his life in front of those bloodthirsty youth. He is Bishwajit Das. On the previous day, he had celebrated the victory of Bangladesh cricket team. In a matter of few hours, he was lying on the ground, writhing in agony, botched up by the young men. In day light, in a street in the capital, and in front of the police and many bystanders, after being repeatedly attacked with meat-chopper and heavy blows and trodden under their feet and soaked in his own blood he finally yielded to death. Did Biswajit ever dream of such a fate in this journey from ecstasy to groan in a matter of a few hours?